Branch-and-Price Solving in G12

Abstract

The G12 project is developing a software environment for stating and solving combinatorial problems by mapping a high-level model of the problem to an efficient combination of solving methods. Model annotations are used to control this process.
In this paper we explain the mapping to branch-and-price solving. G12 supports the selection of specialised subproblem solvers, the aggregation of identical subproblems, automatic disaggregation when required by search, and the use of specialised branching rules. We demonstrate the benefits of the G12 framework on three examples: a trucking problem, cutting stock, and two-dimensional bin packing.